On my first Bonsai
visit to South Africa I needed to
find material for my demo at the
convention. Rob was kind enough to
let me use some raw material from
his large Yamadori collection . I
chose Celtis Africana or White
Stinkwood which allowed me to prune
and do some basic styling
quickly. Rob and some of the East
Rand guys helped me prepare the
trees for transplanting and we spent
a day getting the Material ready. On
the big day I was on the stage and
explained that I was going to make a
group. Some of the audience started
whispering while others looked on in
disbelief. The stage was empty
except for a table on which there
was a tiny pot with three tiny trees
no more that 8 inches tall. I looked
at the audience and then the
material , made the three tree group
while all the time keeping a very
straight face. When completed five
minutes later I exploded with anger
saying 'was this all South Africa
could offer a visiting teacher?'
Then I threw the tiny group into the
side of the stage. The audience was
either amused or horrified as after
all, they did not know how I was
going to react with this demo
material. Then Rob and his team came
on stage with a six foot long pot
and these enormous trees. The
audience were delighted with the
joke and we had what was a four hour
demo. Here are the results. It was
really all down to Rob who made that
demo possible.

Knowing that Rob was so
highly respected as a teacher I asked him to be in my recent book where I
included some of Robís superb work. It was through Robís contacts that this book
also showed some of the amazing and international quality of the Bonsai of South
African artists. As a fan of South African Bonsai and these artists I was happy
to know that. Rob illuminated our life we should not be here to
praise the ashes of the departed but to preserve his fire through the joyous
memory of the man himself and that we will always be able to say, 'Rob Clausen,
I knew him well'

Click for big pictures of Joy
and Colin Morton from New Zealand visiting my garden in August
2010

During
Early 2008, my friend, Yumiko Hirohama from Nara came to visit me with her
mum. Yumiko is a teacher in Kyoto and a student of Buddhist architecture
and Japanese Roofing Tiles. Yumiko recently got married. Yumiko has been my guide in Nara in 2006 and
2007. Yumiko is standing front of some of my Yamadori. Big John is on
her left. We also looked after her during her visit in 2011.